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The beauty of democracy is the power a single vote gives to the electorate, power to choose who governs them, power to remove a non-performing leader.

Democratic practice in Africa has over the years become more and more lopsided. Here, power does not rest with the electorate, but has been hijacked by the political class who, over the years, enshrined a system of election manipulation characterised by financial inducements, ballot rigging, stuffing and snatching, as well as assassination of opponents.

Stories of electoral manipulation resonate all over Africa, especially sub-Saharan Africa, where the norm is sit-tight despotic leaders who, usually after completing the constitutional terms, try very hard to alter the constitution to allow for extra terms, and where this is not possible, install a sympathetic lackey to oversee affairs on their behalf.

In recent years, another form of manipulation, popularised by the likes of late Zaire president, Mobutu Sese Seko, appears to be garnering converts amongst the political class. A good instance is ousted President Mamoudu Tanja of Niger, who had to be forced out of office by the military after he attempted to change the constitution to accommodate his power extension scheme. Another is President Jose Eduardo Dos Santos of oil-rich Angola, in power for three decades, who recently signed into law a new constitution that scrapped the post of prime minister while concentrating executive responsibility in the hands of the president. The new constitution also empowers the president to appoint a vice president, the judges of the Constitutional Court, Supreme Court, and the Court of Audit.

Invariably, the new constitution, aside from granting Mr. Santos more powers, also allows him to run for a fresh five-year term against an opposition that is already claiming that results of the yet-to-be held election is already fixed.

Though some analysts have argued that the problem of electoral manipulation and the subsequent bad leadership it breeds are effects of the much beleaguered colonial heritage, some others, like Godsway Yaw Sappor, writing about the failure of African Leadership, argued that:

“Colonialism did not bestow much to Africa, but the African leadership could not retain, let alone increase, the little that it inherited. Corrupt leaders destroyed the inherited infrastructure – roads, bridges, schools, universities, hospitals, telephones, and even the civil service machinery, are now in shambles.

“Common sense dictates looking both ways before crossing a street, or risk being hit by a truck. For decades, African leaders looked only one way, at “external factors”: colonial legacies, the lingering effects of the slave trade, an unjust international economic system, and predatory practices of multi-national corporations, among others, to explain the miserable economic performance of the continent,” he concluded.

We can infer from the position of Sappor that African leaders tend to blame outside forces for the massive lapses that characterise electioneering in Africa. Perhaps, it is time they changed that orientation.
Though electoral manipulations can and do occur outside of Africa, with or without the resultant violence, the biting question is, when will Africa become an exception to this bitter rule?

Many supposedly progressive African politicians have argued that resorting to the status quo (here, electoral manipulations) is a means to an end, since they might never get anywhere unless they get their hands dirty.
In their argument, they tend to forget a fundamental truth; that electoral manipulation throws up more problems than it solves, especially where good governance is concerned, because it is impossible for a politician who willingly breaks the law to get into office to work for the good of the society.

The Post Newspaper, Zambia, in its editorial of Monday, 26 June 2006, sums the argument thus: “Elections are very important to the governance of our country and should not be conducted in a manner that is similar to an auction sale.”

A political blogger

Uche Ohia puts it in better perspective when he said: “When votes do not count or are not counted, ‘victory‘ does not go to the best candidate but to the best rigger – that is the candidate whose political party has greater capacity to intimidate, cheat, or compromise electoral officials, security agents and, if need be, to unleash violence.

“When votes do not count, candidates seek not to outscore each other in the ballot, but to out-manoeuvre (or, if you like, out-rig) each other. When votes do not count, the electoral process becomes devoid of even a modicum of morality: the end justifies the means.”

Suffice it to say here that for Africa to begin that long road that leads towards mental and economic emancipation, the institutionalised evils of sycophancy and nepotism must give way to an enduring system of government that is closer to the true ideals of democratic governance. The prevailing system whereby a certain class sees politics as a profit-orientated business must give way before any meaningful economic development will take place in the continent.

The gains of democracy, which should include a credible electoral system, need to be consolidated in Africa, especially now that the continent aims to clean up its image in the world.

With 2010 and 2011 being election years in Africa, the hope is that Africa would emerge without the usual anarchy associated with the electoral process in the continent.

That, in itself, would be a great improvement.